Fresh doubts surface over embattled MP (possible Galloway-al Qaida link)

poor little Galloway

If only he had someone to defend him, someone to be his spokesman, he might be able to set this whole stew up right...

I know. He should hire Baghdad Bob... I just know Bob would be ecstatic to be his spokesman.

Galloway admits appeal paid wife £18,000

By Sean O'Neill and Sally Pook in Burgau

(Filed: 28/04/2003)

The appeal set up by George Galloway to treat a sick Iraqi child spent more than £800,000 on political campaigns and expenses, including a direct salary payment to his wife, the MP admitted yesterday.

Dr Amineh Abu Zayyad, Mr Galloway's Palestinian wife, was paid around £18,000 by the appeal fund to "look after" Mariam Hamza, the girl who received treatment for leukaemia in Britain and America.

The activities of the Mariam Appeal, established in 1998 to raise £100,000 to treat the child, are being investigated by the Charity Commission. Mr Galloway disclosed basic details of the appeal's expenditure to the Mail on Sunday, from which he receives £75,000 for a weekly column.

He said the fund's accounts, when fully revealed, would show that, after spending £100,000 on Mariam's treatment, it spent £860,000 on anti-sanctions campaigns, expenses and administration.

Four times as much money was spent on renting offices in central London and in paying staff salaries as went on treating Mariam.

Mr Galloway estimated the salary bill was £300,000, including payments to 18 people on temporary contracts. One of those was Dr Abu-Zayyad who, Mr Galloway said, received £18,000 for nine months' work in 1999.

He said: "She was paid to look after the child. Her salary was pro-rata about £25,000 a year but she didn't work for a whole year. It was only about nine months. She, like me, had her travel costs paid. She has not benefited in any other way. She was eminently qualified to do the job."

Dr Abu-Zayyad, who became Mr Galloway's girlfriend in 1991 and married him in 2000, is a research scientist with a doctorate from Glasgow University. She is a member of the British Society for Cell Biology.

Mr Galloway said the payments to his wife were made before Fawaz Zureikat, his associate, became a donor to the appeal. Mr Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman who sold baby milk and cooking oil to the Iraqi trade ministry in return for proceeds from oil sales, told the Mail on Sunday he had given £350,000 to the appeal direct from his bank accounts. He also received commission for helping to arrange international oil deals for Iraq.

According to documents found by The Daily Telegraph in the Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad, Mr Zureikat was acting as Mr Galloway's "representative" in Baghdad. One memo states that at a meeting with intelligence agents Mr Zureikat said Mr Galloway's plans needed "financial support" from Iraq.

One memo purports to quote Mr Zureikat saying that the names of Mr Galloway and his wife should not be mentioned. But another document purports to record a meeting between Mr Galloway and an Iraqi agent in Baghdad on Boxing Day 1999 and talked of the need for "continuous financial support".

The papers were found in files about Britain discovered at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry building.

Mr Galloway, who is at his holiday home in Portugal, has denied receiving payments from the Saddam regime.

He is threatening to sue The Daily Telegraph for libel and said last week that, if he discovered from his own records that he was not in Iraq at Christmas 1999, "the Telegraph will come down in flames". He has denied ever knowingly meeting Iraqi agents. But confirmation of his presence in Baghdad at the time of the alleged meeting has emerged.

Iraqi TV broadcast a report of a meeting between Mr Galloway and Izzat Ibrahim, vice-chairman of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council, on Dec 27 1999 - the day after the documents say he met with the intelligence agent.

The Iraqi broadcast was picked up, recorded and translated by the BBC's Monitoring Unit. Its record of the meeting between Mr Galloway and Ibrahim says the Iraqi official "conveyed the Iraqi people's warm feelings and greetings" to the Glasgow Kelvin MP.

Mr Galloway has said his regular visits to Baghdad were on Mariam Appeal business and to check on life in the country under UN sanctions. The appeal was set up in 1998 to raise £100,000 to treat Mariam. Mr Galloway said at the time: "The balance after Mariam's hospital bills have been paid will be sent as medicine and medical supplies to the children she had to leave behind."

But he now admits that, after spending £100,000 on treating Mariam, the fund spent £200,000 on a Big Ben-to-Baghdad double decker bus publicity trip and £60,000 on a sanctions-busting flight to Baghdad.

London offices accounted for £125,000 while £300,000 was spent on wages.

The damning of Gorgeous George

In a burning Baghdad building a journalist finds 'proof' that the Labour MP and Saddam apologist was in the pay of the Iraqi regime. Andy McSmith pieces together the full extraordinary story and asks: was he or wasn't he?

27 April 2003

On a Saturday afternoon in Baghdad, while other correspondents worried about the looting of museums or the disorder in the streets, the man from The Daily Telegraph went to the Foreign Ministry to have a rummage.

The ministry building was in a bad state. It had been hit by a cruise missile and ransacked by looters, and unlike other important government buildings, was not being guarded by American troops.

The looters were hammering away, removing the light fittings, when David Blair (no relation to Tony) and his Arab translator arrived in a first-floor room adjoining what had been the office of the Foreign Minister. The Daily Telegraph says that he was on a fishing expedition, not knowing what he might find.

Scrambling in the grime and soot, he found boxes dumped on the floor, possibly by looters, with their contents undamaged by the fire and smoke that had ruined part of the building. The boxes were labelled. Mr Blair pointed to one label after another, asking, "What does that say? What does that say?" against the background noise of looters crashing about in other rooms.

They came upon a box marked "Britain", containing four blue folders. In the first was a letter written by the Labour MP George Galloway, nominating the Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat as his representative in Baghdad, and a letter from Sir Edward Heath. Both documents are genuine.

Eventually, Mr Blair and his translator gathered up three boxes marked "Britain" and one marked "France", containing about 4,000 documents in all, and carried them out of the building – an act which, examined in the wrong light, could be described as looting. The Daily Telegraph defends their unorthodox action by saying that, "by then, the documents did not really belong to anyone".

Back in his hotel room, Mr Blair enlisted a second translator and had them both skim-read as many documents as they could. As well as being quicker, having two of them was a safeguard against mistranslation.

On Sunday morning, he rang in with the sensational news that he had found a document, written in Arabic, which suggested that George Galloway had had dealings with Iraqi intelligence and had been in the pay of the Iraqi government.

The document suggested that he had received 10 to 15 cents per barrel from the sale of three million barrels of oil under the United Nations oil for food programme – or a total of between $300,000 and $450,000 (around £190,000 to £285,000) – every six months. Using the lower figure, the Telegraph calculated that Mr Galloway had been trousering "at least £375,000 a year" of tainted money. The document also suggested that he was asking for more – a request which was turned down, according to another document, after Saddam Hussein decided that Iraq could not afford him.

The Labour MP is not a popular figure at The Daily Telegraph. It does not like his left-wing opinions, his ferocious championing of Arab causes or his practice of aggressively calling in his lawyers whenever he is under attack.

It was partly out of respect for his litigious ways that the newspaper did nothing that Sunday, holding off until the editor, Charles Moore, and the libel lawyers were in the office, and until – most importantly – they had had a chance to put their allegations to Mr Galloway.

On Monday, a political correspondent, Andrew Sparrow, got through to Mr Galloway on his mobile phone at his holiday home in Portugal, and spoke to him for 40 minutes. The story was judged to be worth five full news pages and a thunderous leader the following day, and similar treatment for the rest of the week.

So was it a first-class journalistic coup – or will it be remembered as one of those great fakes like the Zinoviev letter?

If the documents prove to be genuine, they will certainly destroy the political career of George Galloway, taking out one of the Government's most articulate and most hated opponents. Even those who share Mr Galloway's views on the Middle East could not be expected to tolerate greed on that scale.

Three days after they appeared, the Telegraph's allegations were dwarfed by another, made by The Christian Science Monitor, published in Boston, which claimed to have seen other documents giving details of payments to Mr Galloway of more than £6m, which would make him one of the richest men in Parliament.

There was also a foretaste of the use to which the scandal would be put, namely to discredit the whole anti-war movement, in Tuesday's Daily Telegraph editorial, written by a Tory MEP, Daniel Hannan, an ally of Iain Duncan Smith.

Mr Hannan turned on its head the familiar accusation that the war in Iraq was fought for oil, suggesting that the war party had been motivated by a disinterested concern for Iraqi citizens, while "the anti-war activists – or at least their leaders – were acting for profit". He also appeared to lament that the European Convention on Human Rights had caused Tony Blair to abolish the death penalty in treason cases, thereby sparing the Labour MP from being hanged.

Mr Galloway, meanwhile, has fiercely denied that the letter is genuine. His first reaction was to suggest that The Daily Telegraph might have forged it.

A day later, using the columns of the left-wing newspaper Tribune to defend himself, he was more reflective. "I don't know the provenance of these documents," he wrote, "or how the Telegraph came to stumble, in a burning, destroyed, looted building, upon such a find."

Another explanation put forward by Mr Galloway's defenders is that the document may be a scam by someone in Iraqi intelligence who was trying to obtain money dishonestly from the regime by pretending it was for Mr Galloway.

Others just think it is too convenient that when the coalition powers were having to face awkward questions about looting, about Saddam Hussein's whereabouts and about the missing weapons of mass destruction, domestic opinion is suddenly diverted by a highly damaging story about a prominent anti-war campaigner.

The Daily Telegraph's senior journalists are confident that the find is genuine, especially since other documents from the same trove have been authenticated. They dismiss the possibility that intelligence agents could have created an elaborate forgery and left it in a box in a damaged building, along with genuine documents, in the hope somebody would find it. Although Mr Galloway says that he will sue, his lawyers have not yet served a writ.

But if he does not go to court to clear his name, it is difficult to see what future Mr Galloway can have in politics. Up to now he has led a charmed life, lurching through one crisis after another, strongly defending himself at every turn.

In addition to his aggressive debating style, he has the reputation of a man who likes money and foreign travel. He enjoys fast cars, expensive suits and top-of-the-range cigars, and revealed during the week that he has mortgages totalling around £366,000 on two properties in London and Portugal, suggesting he faces monthly repayments that would make an appreciable dent in a backbench MP's salary of £56,000. However, Mr Galloway supplements his MP's income with at least £70,000 a year from journalism.

In 2000-01 he made 11 trips which were paid for by the Mariam Appeal, a trust he founded to help a young Iraqi girl receive treatment for leukaemia, which is now being investigated by the Charity Commission. These were only some of his trips, almost all paid for from Arab sources.

When he was a young secretary of the Dundee Labour Party, his early career was dogged by allegations of financial irregularities in the running of a drinking club. More allegations cropped up when he was general secretary of War on Want. An auditor cleared him of misuse of funds. He repaid £1,720 in contested expenses.

Soon after his arrival in the Commons in 1987, after he had unseated Roy Jenkins in Glasgow Hillhead, Mr Galloway admitted to having conducted two extramarital affairs while he was a charity worker, helping earn him the nickname Gorgeous George. His first marriage ended that year, and he later married a Palestinian biologist, Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad, who is assumed to provide much of the inspiration for his fierce support of the Arabs.

Soon afterwards, he faced a selection contest inside the Hillhead Labour Party, in which a majority of party members voted for other candidates, having apparently tired of Mr Galloway. He was, uniquely, saved by the combined votes of the Scottish trade unions.

Whether the unions or anyone else can save him again is open to doubt. Labour's General Secretary, David Triesman, had already opened an investigation that could lead to Mr Galloway's expulsion from the Labour Party before last week's allegations surfaced.

Staff at Labour Party headquarters say that they received "hundreds" of com- plaints after Mr Galloway was seen on Abu Dhabi television, describing George Bush and Tony Blair as "wolves". Whether the documents found in Baghdad prove to be genuine or not, Mr Galloway's days as a Labour MP may soon be over.

Well, time to start calling him, Jihad George now!

WAR IN THE GULF: GEORGE WIFE BLASTS CLAIMS Apr 28 2003

GEORGE Galloway's wife last night denied as "rubbish" claims he had blown a fortune on a Cuban mistress.

Biologist Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad said: "This is an old story that has been resurrected to try and discredit us. It's nonsense."

The Palestinian-born scientist has been under siege since last week's allegations that Labour's Glasgow Kelvin MP had received illegal payments from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime.

As the allegations broke about the MP's love life, Amineh, 41, said she was braced for fresh rumours each day.

She said: "Everyday someone comes out with something else.

"But we are bearing up well. I am in constant touch with my husband and he is fine.

"I keep telling him to hold his head up high. He has done nothing wrong."

But her voice sounded close to breaking as she added: "We will come through this stronger."

Amineh has faced the allegations alone at their home in Streatham, south London.

Galloway, 48, has been writing a book on Iraq at their villa on the Algarve, Portugal, since Easter.

He was estranged from his first wife Elaine and had a headline-hitting affair behind him when he met Amineh in 1991.

They married in March 2000 in London.

Mr Galloway's wife said yesterday that her husband had done nothing wrong. "He is a hero to me," Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad told the Daily Mirror. "I have always admired him and I continue to do so. I am fully behind him. I have always believed in him 100 per cent.

"Any idiot can see this is a disgraceful smear campaign and we will fight it. My husband is an honorable man which is why I married him."

For goodness sake, let the man enjoy his last vacation :)

Sunday, 10 March, 2002, 23:22 GMT

Bin Laden connected to London dissident

Al-Masari admits he has talked with and helped Osama Bin Laden in the past and would do so again, telling Five Live Report: "Yes, why not?"

The programme asked Al-Masari why he had helped Osama Bin Laden in the past, he said: 'It's the same cause." When asked if he would still help him he replied: "Yeah, if we can help anything, why not?"

Labour MP George Galloway was also part of the campaign to keep Al-Masari from being deported to the Caribbean island of Dominica in 1995.

The MP - who had a blazing row at Westminster this week after he was called an apologist for Saddam Hussein by a government minister - told the programme: "I have never seen any evidence that either Al-Masari or Al-Fagih were in any way connected to violence and if you have uncovered any I will listen to your programme with interest.'

Galloway: 'Never seen any evidence'

"To attempt a smear by association with that widely supported campaign is disreputable," Mr Galloway said.

There is no suggestion that the MP knew about the purchase of the satellite phone.

Evidence that Saad Al-Fagih bought the satellite phone later rung by one of the men who blew up the US embassy in Nairobi emerged during a New York trial in 2000, when four al-Qaeda suspects were found guilty of the African embassy bombings.

United States attorney Kenneth Karas told a grand jury what was in Exhibit 1623: an order form for an Exact-M 22 Satellite Telephone, dated 1 November 1996: "and for the record, payment portion, Saad Al-Fagih." The order was signed 'S. R. H. Al Fagih.'

When asked about the purchase of the satellite phone, Al-Fagih said: "Go and ask anybody else. I do not confirm anything here.

"I do not even confirm there have been any details about purchase or not purchase.....I have no comment on this."

He told the programme: "Everybody knows that I am totally committed to peaceful agenda."

In 1997 the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges investigated a complaint that George Galloway had not declared an interest when speaking on Saudi Arabia the year before.

MPs threw out the complaint but looked more closely into the question of Galloway acting as a financial intermediary.

Mr Galloway was paid £5,000 in cash by Al-Fagih in late 1995 to early 1996 to repay costs incurred on behalf of others during the campaign to prevent Al-Masari's deportation.

He was also given £1800 in cash by Al-Fagih to pass on to academics to help with the same campaign. Mr Galloway has never identified the academics.

http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:PUDFFag9kG8C:news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1862000/1862579.stm+George+Galloway,Saad+al-Fagih&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

"Al-Fagih refused to comment on Galloway but said: 'We have always rejected any overtures made by the Saudi regime.' "

Because al Fagih is an Islamakazi. He was probably part of the silent protest outside the Saudi embassy in Britain last year, which was basically a threat that the Islamakazis would rebel against the Saudi Royal family if Saudi backed coalition action in Iraq.

What's the source?

Independent(UK) Ltd

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=400765

Amineh has faced the allegations alone at their home in Streatham, south London.

Has anyone started the pool on when we expect the missus to slip out of the country yet?

"Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability."

Galloway, speaking face-to-face to Saddam on Iraqi TV, 1994.

Galloway, Ritter, and Garafolo keep going further and further into the abyss.

Where they belong.

Mr Galloway entered into partnership with [a named Iraqi oil trader] (available information in appendix 2) to sign for his specific oil contracts in accordance with his representative Fawaz, benefiting from the great experience of the first in oil trading and his passion for Iraq and financial contribution to campaigns that were organised in Britain for the benefit of the country, in addition to his recommendation by Mr Mudhafar al-Amin, the head of the Iraqi Interests Section in London.

More...

This is the man who said to the butcher of Baghdad, "Sir, allow me to salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability" and described his handshake as "gentle".

He's the brown-noser who delivered Quality Street chocolates to a tyrant in possession of a genocide programme Hitler himself would have envied. And far from grilling the Iraqi leader's son Uday about his reputation as a rapist and murderer, Galloway shared his Baghdad barber, whose prices make a Nicky Clarke blow-dry look like a snip.

"I've done Mr Galloway's hair maybe 10 times," said barber Ali. "Very nice man. He pays me £200 for one haircut."

George isn't known as "Gorgeous" for nothing. Renowned for his sartorial elegance, love of first-class travel and top totty, he enjoys a lifestyle that affords him homes in Scotland and Portugal.

snip

"He was surprisingly diffident," Galloway cooed after one meeting with the Iraqi leader.

So when he gassed innocent children and hacked men to death, it was just an off day, then?

http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:ZaLci1Lzod4C:www.mirror.co.uk/columnists/suecarroll/+the+damning+of+gorgeous+george&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Galloway's writing a book on Iraq? I wonder what he plans to call it...My Friend Saddam, the Gentle Dictator? How the JOOOOS and Their Partners, the Great Satan, Oppress Our Arab Brothers?

I also wonder why he didn't come back from Portugal when the Telegraph broke the story. Why is he leaving his wife to take the heat? In fact, shouldn't the MP be in Parlaiment? Is Parlaiment in recess or something? Sort of a spring break?

I don't think we'll see Clinton. One thing I learned in dating is never go with a girl who's just gonna give ya trouble if ya break up. I think Clinton followed a similar bit of logic. Iraq was after all a whipping boy for him to pump his numbers up.

Odds are you'll see people around Clinton though including organizations that pressured Clinton and possibly gave Clinton money.

This puke should have his balls cut off in a public square.

I also think really bad things, and I mean REALLY bad, are going to come out about France.

I think we will evidentually find conclusive evidence of France's complicity in 9/11.

I'm convinced of it.

GEORGE Galloway's wife last night denied as "rubbish" claims he had blown a fortune on a Cuban mistress.

A CUBAN mistress! hahahahahaha

I'm sure way back when he had a Soviet girlfriend, too.

" My husband is an honorable man which is why I married him."

Yeah, sure, honey.